Meta engineer's journey: Teenage breadwinner to startup success

While most teenagers concern themselves with the latest social media trends, surviving middle school, and running around with friends, Michael Sayman was focused on building apps to support his family. Living Not So Fabulously hosts David & John Auten-Schneider speak with Sayman about his unique experience becoming Meta Generative AI Software Engineer & Friendly Apps Founder, which started as his family's breadwinner at just 13 years old. This forced his family to confront unique dynamics and money conversations when talking about money is already hard enough without the addition of teenage hormones. "I myself was an inexperienced 13-year-old generating, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue and trying to help my parents figure out how to [manage money]," Sayman explains. Sayman's unique journey continued when he became Facebook's youngest employee instead of attending college after graduating high school, as his peers were pressured to do so: "I remember just sitting in class and seeing my teacher tell us, 'If we don't go to college, then we won't get a degree... and end up under a bridge.'" But then Sayman realized that the fundamental point of college is to prove trust to a potential employer. He said to himself that to get a job coding, "I can either compete with everybody else in my school to get the best grades in computer science, or I could just build apps, put them on the internet, put my name on it, and have that be my resume. Have that be the trust that can be built by a company in knowing that I'm able to do the job that they're hiring for." Sayman's story of navigating success, self-doubt, and finding his place in tech is an inspiring tale of how an atypical path career path can still bring success. Hosts and husbands of Living Not So Fabulously, David & John Auten-Schneider, dive into real money stories with activists, allies, artists, tech-gurus, and trailblazers in the LGBTQ+ community to give you tangible takeaways to tackle your wallet woes. Find this episode's transcripts and more episodes of Living Not So Fabulously at http://finance.yahoo.com/videos/series/living-fabulously/. Have a money story of your own? Questions? Fan mail? Email us at [email protected]. 00:00-Michael Sayman joins Living Not So Fabulously 02:46-Learned to code as a kid to "avoid homework" 04:14-Became breadwinner at 13 by building apps and small business 06:11-Navigating reversed power dynamic with parents 09:39-Alternatives proof of experience than college Yahoo Finance's Living Not So Fabulously is hosted by David & John Auten-Schneider, and created and produced by Rachael Lewis-Krisky. Michael Sayman, is a Peruvian–Bolivian–American mobile application entrepreneur, software engineer, political activist, and author. He is best known for creating top-charting apps as a teenager to provide for his family during the Great Recession, as well as his subsequent work at Facebook. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices